Xbox 360 Changing the Home Entertainment Game

With its new Xbox 360 game console, Microsoft is hoping to change the face of digital entertainment. The much-anticipated Xbox 360 strives to take gaming to a new level with a unique mix of style, connectivity and services. With it, Microsoft hopes to revolutionize the home entertainment environment in much the same way that Apple Computer revolutionized portable music with the iPod. The Xbox 360 is at its core a videogame system and initially is being marketed as such to the hardcore gamer to drive early sales.

“We’re trying to build the right entertainment platform for the digital generation,” says David Hufford, group director of Xbox 360 platform and games for Microsoft. “The iPod has shown the way that when you bring together the hardware, the software and the service, you can really capture the imagination of people in new, profound ways.”

Games will ship with extra features such as video footage of bands performing the original music created for the game. Some will have a soundtrack playable as a separate option, similar to what the “50 Cent: Bulletproof” game offers for existing consoles. Additionally, games will ship with even more content that can be unlocked only if the gamer pays for it via the Marketplace. A band with only one song in the soundtrack could add the full album as a locked element, for instance.

Reuters